Thursday 28 May 2015

Friday 29 May 2015

Lewis Base Activation of Lewis Acids: An Evolving Paradigm for
Catalysis in Main Group Chemistry

Professor Scott E. Denmark

Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801

Plenary Speaker – 11:00am – Wednesday 27 May 2015

Scott E. Denmark was born in New York on 17 June 1953. He
obtained an S. B. degree from M.I.T. in 1975 and his graduate
studies were carried out at the ETH-Zürich under the direction
of Professor Albert Eschenmoser, culminating in a D. Sc. Tech
degree in 1980. That same year he began his career as assistant
professor at the University of Illinois. He was promoted to
associate professor in 1986, full professor in 1987 and then in
1991 named the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Denmark is primarily interested in the invention of
new synthetic reactions and elucidating the origins of
stereocontrol in novel, asymmetric reactions. The current
emphasis in his laboratories focuses on the relationship between
structure, reactivity and stereoselectivity in a variety of
organoelement processes. He has pioneered the concept of chiral
Lewis base activation of Lewis acids for catalysis in main group
synthetic organic chemistry. His group has also developed
palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings with organofunctional
silicon compounds. In addition his research program encompasses
the development and application of tandem heterodiene
cycloadditions for the synthesis of complex natural (alkaloids)
and unnatural (fenestranes, phase transfer catalysts) nitrogen
containing compounds. In recent years, his group has
investigated the use of chemoinformatics to identify and
optimize catalysts for a variety of organic and organometallic
reactions.

Professor Denmark has won a number of honors for both research and
teaching. These include: A. P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, NSF
Presidential Young Investigator Award, Stuart Pharmaceuticals Award,
A. C. Cope Scholar Award (ACS), Alexander Von Humboldt Senior
Scientist Award, Pedler Lecture and Medal (RSC), the ACS Award for
Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the Yamada-Koga Prize,
the Prelog Medal (ETH-Zürich), the H. C. Brown Award for Creative
Research in Synthetic Methods (ACS), Robert Robinson Lecture and
Medal (RSC), the ISHC Senior Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Paul
Karrer Lectureship (Uni Zürich), the Frederic Stanley Kipping Award
for Research in Silicon Chemistry (ACS), and the Harry and Carol
Mosher Award (Santa Clara Section, ACS). He is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society. He has
received numerous honorary lectureships and visiting professorships
and has served on many editorial advisory boards. He edited Volume
85 of Organic Syntheses, was Editor of Volumes 22-25 of Topics in
Stereochemistry and was a founding Associate Editor of Organic
Letters (1999-2004). After serving on the editorial board from
1994-2003, he became Editor in Chief and President of Organic
Reactions, Inc. in 2008.

Joan F. Brennecke

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Keynote Speaker – 5:00pm – Wednesday 27 May 2015

Ionic liquids (ILs) are organic salts that have sufficiently low
melting points that, in their pure state, they are liquid around
room temperature. We will discuss how ILs can be designed for a
variety of important energy-related applications. We will show
ILs for gas separations, including removal of CO2
from post-combustion flue gas, pre-combustion gases, and natural
gas. We will also discuss the use of ILs for two different
types of refrigeration systems: IL/water absorption
refrigeration and CO2/IL co-fluid vapor compression
refrigeration. Both of these offer environmental advantages
over conventional technology while improving coefficients of
performance. Next, we will show how the structure of the anion
and cation can improve the "ionicity" of ILs, which is important
in the use of ILs as electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, dye
sensitized solar cells and supercapacitors.

Joan F. Brennecke is the Keating-Crawford Professor of Chemical
Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and was the founding
Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame. She
joined Notre Dame after completing her Ph.D. and M.S. (1989 and
1987) degrees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
her B.S. at the University of Texas at Austin (1984).

Her research interests are primarily in the development of less
environmentally harmful solvents. These include supercritical
fluids and ionic liquids. In developing these solvents,
Dr. Brennecke's primary interests are in the measurement and
modeling of thermodynamics, thermophysical properties, phase
behavior and separations. Major awards include the 2001 Ipatieff
Prize from the American Chemical Society, the 2006 Professional
Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers,
the J.M. Prausnitz Award at the Eleventh International Conference
on Properties and Phase Equilibria in Greece in May, 2007, the 2008
Stieglitz Award from the American Chemical Society, the 2009
E.O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the
2014 E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
from the American Chemical Society. She serves as Editor-in-Chief
of the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data. Her 130+ research
publications have garnered over 12,000 citations. She was inducted
into the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.

Pursuit of Treatments for Unmet Medical Needs: Current Approaches
and Case Studies in Drug Discovery

Dustin J. Mergott, Ph.D.

Keynote Speaker – 5:00pm – Thursday 28 May 2015

The current challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry have
been well-documented and extensively debated. Indeed, pharmaceutical
drug discovery is a complicated endeavor. Fortunately, new discovery
approaches are emerging to address these challenges. An overview of
these drug discovery approaches along with specific case studies
will be presented.

Dr. Dustin J. Mergott received his Bachelor's degree in chemistry
from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1998. He then received his
Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2004 from the University of Michigan
under the guidance of Professor William R. Roush, and subsequently
completed a two-year postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University
in the lab of Professor Eric N. Jacobsen. Dustin joined Lilly in
2006 where he is currently Principal Research Scientist and
Medicinal Chemistry Group Leader. While at Lilly, Dustin’s research
has focused on Alzheimer's Disease and Oncology. He has played a key
role in leading Lilly's BACE inhibitor research program and is a
named inventor on multiple U.S. patents covering BACE inhibitors.
Dustin is a native of the midwest, having lived in Edina, Minnesota,
where he was born, as well as Chicago, Ann Arbor, and now
Indianapolis. He also loved his time in Cambridge, MA.